


Teeth

by Lastactiontricia



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 10:50:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16852654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lastactiontricia/pseuds/Lastactiontricia
Summary: “Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.”-Stephen KingStatus: One ShotWord Count:3105Category: HorrorRating: if drinking, multiple uses of the word fuck, or injury isn’t PG, then 18+Character(s): Dean, John, some other foolsPairing(s): you’ll have to wait & seeWarnings: see rating aboveAuthor’s Note(s): Based on a true storyBanner made by the incredible @seenashwrite who also found time to beta for me as well as @yourewelcomeforbeingmyfriend my beta workhorse lol Thank you both so much for taking the time to help me outOverall Summary: People get into hunting all sorts of ways…it’s pretty rare to accomplish with nobody dyingUnfinished business is a motherfucker.





	Teeth

Hips aching from the drive, you squinted through your scratched sunglasses (now prescription strength!) a rictus grin spreading over your face. Not much left to lose now. You’d bought the land, under your real name no less. That should get Sam’s attention. Just in case. Standing within a mile of that house brought you back, made you feel sixteen again. All that softly swaying corn made your neck feel tight. The scars on your sides started itching; pride held you back from dragging your nails across them.  
A thousand stories from a thousand storytellers had spun parts of the truth of this place, the thread of it beginning long before you were born. Your chapter was popular now. Teenagers spoke your name in whispers, scaring each other with a local Bloody Mary.  
Just another case.  
20 years ago  
They were just passing through. Nobody stayed at the Starlight Inn unless they were fucking someone other than their wife, unless they really didn’t want to put down roots. This rural intersection of a town wasn’t exactly booming anyway. The ting-ting of the metal sign barely hanging on at the Shell station in all its hand painted glory, the boarded-up windows in two out of every five houses on the main drag; these were indicators. Loss of economic infrastructure, they’d said, a fancy way of ringing a death knell.  
Six feet of lean muscle and bad attitude lounging outside the motel, ruffling his little brother’s hair as he passed by. He sat next to you in class, covertly paying attention to chemistry but pretending not to. Thank God for accelerated programs, put you in the senior class when you were a sophomore. Eyes locking with yours as you stubbed out a cigarette. September was still hot as fuck, the air conditioning unit rattling uselessly against the window. In three hours, you could get the hell out of here, tear out of the parking lot in your Dakota hard enough to even impress Dean Winchester. Sarah was having a party and you always brought the booze; that shitty gas station job had its benefits.  
There’s a reason most horror movies take place in Illinois, you think to yourself. Driving thru seems so harmlessly banal, endless fields of corn or beans, always slightly swaying even though there’s no wind. Cholera crosses flit past your window, a reminder in Deutsch of when God trumped science, faith held back the dark. The smoke from the cigarette burns as you hold your breath passing gravestones in the field. After all, don’t want your name inscribed there, taking up all that worn-smooth space. Exhaling the smoke gratefully, you’re both embarrassed and relieved to have ascribed to the superstition.  
The road goes from the harsh chip of gravel to dirt, sending up dusty plumes caught in the red of your taillights. You pass a car on the darkened road, edging off into the ditch, looks like the Impala you’ve seen gracing the Starlight, but you scoff it off. The party is rolling by the time you get there, Brent must’ve raided his Dad’s liquor cabinet again. The fanfare you’d expected for bringing booze had lowered from hero of the party to barely a blip on the radar.  
Face made devilish by the firelight, Dean was already smiling up at Danielle, her obnoxious pink skirt short enough to be a vagina preview. You were muttering into your drink again. So much for impressing the new kid. You knew you were being petty, but it would have been nice to try to intro-level a dude who hadn’t seen you throw up spaghetti in the fifth grade. Brent was telling the Wesselmann story again, eyeing you as he regaled Dean with the devil worship rumors, about the old woman people saw sitting on the porch sometimes, about how at night when the corn was high you could see a light on in the attic.  
Brent started mocking you to Dean, retelling the story of the ruined sleepover when Danielle had told everyone how you’d “freaked out” when they had tried to push you on the porch. Cheeks hot, you held your ground, meeting Brent’s taunting stare with one of your own. Dean’s steady gaze burned into you, so adult already, mature enough to make the rest seem childish. Made people like Brent want to impress him. Dean’s back went rigid; he casually shifted Danielle off his lap so smoothly she must have thought it was her idea.  
You fell a little bit in love with him at the look he gives Brent, but he doesn’t defend you. No apologies. You thought about the cigarette you’d shared the night before, standing outside work while you let his brother have his pick of snacks (on the house), about the long, stilted conversations in the dark, huddled around the open door of the ice machine, trying to edge out the humidity.  
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Dean had asked.  
“Mom’s dead.”  
“…Mine too,” Dean followed abruptly.  
The facts but not the feeling. That part was weak, not for sharing. You’d scrubbed it off like the mud on your legs from her funeral.  
When he finally looked away, you left the bonfire and all the almost of Dean behind. By two, you were blindingly and affectionately drunk. But as sweet as you could be, the sharp edges of your general anger were peeking out. You finally talked Sarah and a few others into heading towards the Wesselmann house, if you cut across the field it was less than a mile and most of the corn was down, so you wouldn’t be riding the papercut express.  
It was partly out of boredom, but also because fuck Brent. He was just pissed that you’d kneed him in the groin when he tried to cop a feel at the Milkbowl. You were gonna prove him wrong. Five years had done a lot for your spine. He thought he was cool for standing on the porch? You were gonna go inside that fucking house and write your name on the wall.  
Your disposable camera was burning a hole in your pocket. You couldn’t wait to get these pictures developed and you hadn’t even taken them yet. Sarah was quiet- her Dad owned the land, and he had repeatedly told you both: Stay the fuck away from that house. You knew she was only doing this for you, just like she was hosting the party so the cliquey girls would talk to her. You awkwardly patted her shoulder.  
“Thanks, Sar,” you whispered gratefully.  
A clip of a nod is all you get back.  
The porch sprung up out of the weeds and trees that had grown up into a shield. The light in the attic usually went out when people got this close; this time it glowed in welcome, not shy anymore. You snapped off a few pictures of the house, managing to drag Sarah onto its grimace of an apron. You tossed the camera to Ann, and she took a few of you and Sarah taking swigs of the whiskey you’d brought. As soon as the image was set to film, Sarah dashed off; close enough to still see you, but out of the reach of the twisting arms of the trees that wrapped themselves around the porch.  
Testing your weight on each board, summers rehabbing old houses with your Dad made you cautious; you stepped inside, the door already open like a welcome mat. The small flashlight you carried wasn’t great, but it was enough to illuminate the rust colored stains on the walls of the living room that made your hindbrain stand up; enough to see that the stairs had collapsed. A shiver ran through you, so where the hell had the light come from?  
“Sarah, check this out!” you shout, wanting to hear someone else’s voice, something to break up the insidious silence. Instead, riotous laughter breaks out, more people had shown up and it spurs you on. Pulling a sharpie out of your pocket, beginning to write, but the walls are sucking up the ink faster than you can lay it down. Useless Crap you think, throwing it away. But then a better idea comes to mind. Taking your pocket knife out of your back pocket, you snick it open and in no time the fine edge is sliding through the wallpaper to find crumbling plaster underneath. A brief snag- you sliced through your fingertip while you were at it, and it bled hard, but not alarmingly, so on you went, flinging off the drops with a huff. Your art doesn’t take long and, carved to your satisfaction, you whip out the camera, collecting plenty of proof, the flash blinding in the inky darkness.  
The camera was almost back in your pocket when you noticed all the smudges. Shit. The cut must’ve been deeper than you realized, as it still hadn’t stopped bleeding. Holding the flashlight in your teeth, trying to get a better look, you froze. The rotting wood floor was soaking up every drop not leaving a trace of crimson behind.

The triumph of moments ago fades, a crushing feeling replacing it. The house was lapping up your blood like it was starving, like it was drinking you in. Get out! your brain shouted, and you weren’t about to argue.  
It only took two steps, maybe three, for the house to decide differently, the floor giving way, and all you could think about was your father, what he’d say, how you should know better after all those summers helping him rehab homes thought by others to be beyond salvation. But you hadn’t forgotten. You knew what to do. And you heard his voice in your head, reminding you that you did.  
Get your arms out if a floor gives out. Dislocated shoulder’s better than broken legs, Bunkin’.  
The pain of it reverberates through you, and despite Dad’s warning, neither shoulder is dislocated. A hot rush of blood gushes from your side, the splintered floor with its jagged edges made sure to take its pound of flesh on the way down. Prying yourself out was no good, you’re stuck, sharp edges all around, and no wiggle room. Even if your arms could take it (they couldn’t), you weren’t getting out of here without doing significant damage. Screaming is not an option, even with vocal chords aching with the strain of silence, screaming means you’re afraid and you’d be damned if you give them more cannon fodder.  
“A little help here assholes!” you shout, which is totally different than screaming.  
Sarah manages the porch again- seeing you hammered into the floor like a nail makes her scurry off.  
There’s some kind of debate going on outside, and while it had been totally cool to razz you about a 5th grade sleepover panic, nobody wants to volunteer to go inside now. Thinking about how they could just leave you out here made you break out into a cold sweat.  
Nobody would know.  
The urge to panic was crowding your sense of calm, gaining acid inches from stomach to throat. But you were doing it, you were breathing through the pain (fine, the agony of the gouges), and you were doing great, you were keeping a lid on it, you could do this, Sarah would come through, you were going to make it, and it’d be a story the two of you would laugh about later. Everything was going to be fine, you believed it.  
Until you felt the hand.  
Five cold digits, each an iron vise, wraps around each ankle and pulls. It’s so cold it almost burns. The pressure on your armpits goes from dully agonizing to brutally visceral. Part of your shoulder blade scrapes down into the black maw and you scramble at the remaining floorboards for purchase, sacrificing fingernails in the process. The screaming begins then, pride forgotten in panic, and the hands pull fiercer in punishment. Kicking out with your legs, trying to shake them loose, but that makes it tear furrows into your calves, lightning streaks of torment. Again, you remember Sarah’s dad warning you off that house, telling you it was wrong.  
Wrong down to the foundation.  
You see flashlights start to disappear, taking your hope with them. The slim view through the door goes black and you scream louder, tear at the floor more earnestly. Your left shoulder did dislocate then, the pop loud despite your ragged breathing. You feel yourself lose the battle, left side steadily sinking into the dark. You try to roll your shoulder to stop the progress but that only produces another almost surprised scream. Your right hand is tight but shaking with exhaustion, fingertips curled around the scanty edge of a floorboard. Every wrong thing you’d ever done flashes before your eyes, a short lifetime of regret of every decision that led you here. You don’t let go but you’ve realized it hopeless.  
“FUCK YOU!” you scream down at the floor.  
There’s still no light but suddenly, he’s there. Arms wrap around yours, hands linking into a chain. That smell of motel soap and borrowed cigarettes snaps you into reality again. He rips you out of the floor and keeps dragging you until you’re about twenty feet clear. Haphazardly, falling backward into the threshed corn field with you bleeding all over his Zeppelin shirt.  
“Don’t… don’t you have any fuckin’ sense?” he huffs out against the sweaty crown of your head.  
“Sorry… didn’t know… fuckin’ house… was… was a monster,” you managed, edging off the panic but still gulping in air like a freight train.  
“So, the damn thing’s got to grow teeth for you to get it?” he shot back.  
Not being able to help it, you laugh. The slightly hysterical laugh that only comes after almost dying or something incredibly stupid - in your case, both. It takes a minute, but Dean laughs too.  
Dean tells you the truth, the real truth, he couldn’t lie to you, not after that. Later, you’re sitting on the bumper of the Impala, weathering a disappointed look from John, that look all fathers have mastered. Dean had reset your shoulder when you’d told him no hospitals, then got to work throwing heaps of gasoline onto the house. You held John’s gaze, stubbornly refusing to change your mind. You were helping burn that fucker down. This one and every other house like it. You watched it burn, sacrificed your bronze Zippo to see it done, feeling something cement in you at the sight.  
What you now knew had changed you. No going back. You were going to be a hunter. Nobody was gonna get eaten by a fucking house again. Not on your watch. Dean looked at you with a mix of approval and pity. His dad still had a job to finish nearby, but you knew you’d hear plenty more about monsters from Dean before they left. And as you felt yourself smirk at the sight of his profile, fiercely lit by the growing fire, you thought maybe you’d get more. 

Present Day  
The Kaskaskia River ribbons by your Chevelle, a vehicle, a haven, and sometimes a grave. Rivers are alive in a way that people aren’t, cutting new paths over the years that they think we won’t notice. The lake it feeds has houses, entire towns beneath the mud and occasionally they reach out, looking for new tenants. The summers boil you in humidity and the winters freeze you in ice, but the river still flows by, even when it’s shallow enough to walk across. Crossing a crumbling bridge almost too narrow for modern cars yet sheltered in art deco concrete, you check your sidearm before slipping it into the hidden pocket in your top. Yanking your flannel to cover it, you park and greet Sarah’s father.  
He’s got a sour look on his face- Sarah had sold you what was left of the Wesselmann house, the land surrounding it. For an extremely reasonable price.  
“Now, I know you and Sarah stayed friendly all these years, but she had no call to sell my damn land out from under me,” Jack begins.  
“Jack, I bought it outright - cash for deed. I’m not selling it back to ya.”  
He gives you a look then, one that chills your blood, even knowing what was coming. The corn dances, agitated, the stalks whispering in the fading light. Shadows, so dark they looked like the absence of something, start racing across the lawn, reaching out with cruel hands from the corn.  
Grabbing ahold of Jack in mock panic, you slip out your small pocket knife, now dinged and battered from a thousand hunts, but always sharp. The wood handle still carried the stain of your blood from that night twenty years ago, the night that had started you on this path. Tightening your grip on his wrist, you use the other hand to cut a clean line through his forearm tattoo, deep enough to make that arm useless. Deep enough to put a salty tang in the air, make them thirsty.  
Grinding the bones in his wrist together when he tries to pull away, you make him look you in the eye, “Now Jack, I didn’t just buy the land from Sarah,” pulling out the necklace you now wore, you taunted him with it.  
“She wouldn’t…you can’t…it won’t work!” he sputters out.  
“No sense in lying to each other now, Jack. We both know all that’s needed is a sacrifice,” flinging his arm back at him, you retreat a few steps back toward the house, discouraging him from following with your gun.  
You’d always wondered about Jack’s tattoo when you were a kid. Not many people had them in rural Illinois. The ouroboros symbol wound its way up his forearm, cradling a symbol in the middle. Sarah had always worn a matching necklace.  
A necklace you now wore.  
When Sarah had called a few days ago, she’d told you about her dad and their little chat about her legacy. Sobbed over the phone about how he’d given her a birthright of death, of the demand of sacrifice so great it destroyed. About what had happened to her mother. The deal he’d struck was singular, only one necklace to give. Take the mark, pass the necklace down.  
You watch them tear him apart, turning on their master, dragging what was left under the dirt, the moon gleaming harvest yellow on corn that would never be gathered.


End file.
